Vancouver, British Canada is located on the coast in BC’s Lower Mainland. Its population as of 2006 was about 578,000 people and it is 44.3 square miles (8.1). Vancouver’s composting movement may be the least comprehensive out of the three that I studied, but that does not mean it isn’t on its way to becoming something impressive. Fueled by the press they are going to get during the 2010 Winter Olympics, Vancouver recently declared their mission to become the world’s “greenest city” by 2020 (8.2). In order to achieve this goal, the city has launched a plethora of new environmental initiatives, one of which deals with composting. However, unlike the other cities I studied, Vancouver is putting a very large emphasis on individual composting instead of just industrial (8.3). Since 1990, the city has been subsidizing backyard compost bins in order to reduce the amount of infrastructure that industrial composting currently requires. According to a fact sheet on the Vancouver Composting website, about 46 percent of houses with yard space use backyard composters they bought from the city (8.3). To make composting easier for its residents, though, Vancouver expanded its city-wide yard waste composting system on April 21, 2010 to include pre-consumer waste and plans to make collection weekly and include all food waste by early 2011 (9). This is how it works:Collection:Like San Francisco and Seattle, Vancouver’s food waste collection was simply added to its yard waste system (8). Since April 21, residents have been able to throw pre-consumer waste such as eggshells, uncooked fruit and vegetable scraps, coffee grounds, filters, and tea bags, in with their yard waste (8). A major downside to the city’s new program is that they can’t afford to institute weekly yard waste collection so post-consumer waste cannot be included. If cooked food were allowed to rot on the street for two weeks the smell would be extremely powerful and create an aversion to composting. Also, the compost processing plants need to adjust their process to include food waste so implementing the program in steps is probably the smartest idea. Another problem is that they have yet to include multi-unit buildings in the composting program (8), so until they can set up a system like the one in San Francisco for apartment and commercial buildings, a lot of food waste will continue to go to the landfills. Vancouver’s regular waste service picks up the organic waste and brings it to the composting facility operated by Fraser Richmond Soil and Fibre (10.1).Process: When the organic waste is brought to Fraser’s facilities in Richmond, BC they go through a very different process than the organic waste in either San Francisco or Seattle. Both of the other cities I studied used a method of composting that involves turning the piles frequently. Fraser, however, uses a method they call the Unturned Covered Aerated Static Pile (10.1). Basically the compost is ground up, mixed, and put in piles in the same industrialized way the other two cities do. Instead of creating windrows just anywhere, however, Fraser has perforated pipes set up that run through the middle of the piles, which they keep covered (10.1). Air is then blown into the piles through the piles with a mechanized timer system, so no turning is needed. This method also reduces the amount of smell that comes from the organic decomposition and takes about the same amount of time as the processes in the other two cities (10.1). Currently, Fraser is installing a high-solids anaerobic digestion system at their plant, which uses microorganisms to break down the compost and then captures the methane and carbon dioxide that is released, turning it into renewable energy (10). They say this process will be used on Vancouver’s food and plant waste by 2011 (10). This is another step in becoming more sustainable that I have not seen many other places consider, but if it works it could be an extremely effective way to create clean energy.

Distribution:Once the compost is made, it is sold by Fraser Richmond to farmers and residents in the area (10). Although Recology gave some of its compost to San Francisco free of charge, selling it seems to be the most beneficial way of distributing the compost. Not only does selling it prove that organic products can be just as good, if not better, than traditional ones, but it also improves the reputation of the composting system itself. Since residents are the ones composting in the first place, buying some of it back and using it to grow more plants would physically show them how effective the process is.